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Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

My answer to this question is yes. Linear tracking arms trace the record exactly the way it was cut. Pivoted arms generally have two null points across the record and they are the only two points the geometry is correct. All other points on the record have a degree of error with pivoted arms. Linear tracking arms don't need anti-skating like pivoted arms do which is another plus for them.

Linear tracking arms take more skill to set up initially, but I feel they reward the owner with superior sound quality. I have owned and used a variety of pivoted arms over the years, but I feel that my ET-2 is superior sounding to all of them. You can set up a pivoted arm incorrectly and it will still play music. Linear tracking arms pretty much force you to have everything correct or else they will not play. Are they worth the fuss? I think so.
mepearson

Showing 2 responses by thegage

thegage
7 posts
 
I see alot of discussion here about the theoretical downside of linear arms relative to forces on the stylus/cantilever, but not much real-world testing.

OTOH I have an article from High Performance Review circa 1986, where they used a special test device, the Orsonic Side Force Checker SG-1, to measure stylus deflection of the device mounted to an ET-2 arm compared to the device mounted to a pivoted arm (can't remember which arm right now, I'll have to go check). The pivoted arm showed much greater side-to-side deflection of the stylus during play as compared to the ET-2, the conclusion being that the pivoted arm was causing greater wear of the stylus and cartridge suspension. Unfortunately they haven't made the Orsonic for a while, as it would be interesting to make the same test with more modern pivoted tonearms.

I would agree (and the second link below seems to come to the same conclusion) that mechanical linear trackers (whether passive or active) do put excessive side force on the stylus, in a way that would lead to poor performance and quicker wear of the cartridge.

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=vinyl&n=155855

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogue-source/34126-opus-3-cantus-parallel-tracking-arm.html#post395258
thegage
7 posts
 
I dug out the old article (High Performance Review, Vol. 4 No. 2, by Ted Simmons/David Tarumoto). Here is what it says: "...normal pivoted arms must confront this same dynamic alignment issue. To look into this motion we mounted an Orsonic Side Force Checker SG-1 in ET2 and SAEC WE 407/23 (double knife-edge pivoted) arms. The SG-1 is a cartridge complete with cantilever and stylus that has an indicator pointer attached to the cantilever to show the relative motion of the stylus. It's a very handy device to check the amount of side force correction to dial in with pivoted arms. Here we're using it to measure more dynamic changes.

"In this case, we used it to see the relative side-to-side motion when tracking sample LPs. Normal LPs, plus those with obviously off-center holes and those with definite warps were tried.

"Surprisingly, SAEC's WE 407/23 showed a much wider side-to-side movement of the pointer than the ET2 on all of the sample LPs that we used. This happened when playing both test records (produced very precisely) and typical mass market pressings."

Interesting, but only one data point, and not able to be easily verified.
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